Circle of Normal
by Cyndi
Summary: Why is the world so cruel?


Author's note: Well here I am again with another one shot short story. I wouldn't quite call this one a freewriting exercise. I got into the right mood to write this, so I just went ahead and wrote it. It is written in first person POV and you are seeing through the eyes of an autistic psychic. I will warn you now that this is an autistic mind "unedited", which means rambling, run on sentences, repetition and descriptions that may not make sense. These are intentional. It was hard work putting "picture thoughts" into words...but I think I did a good job. Before anybody jumps on my case about not knowing what the hell I'm writing about- YES I DO, because I live with it myself. Though I don't have it so severely that I can not speak, my thinking processes and sensory issues are exactly like this character's.I'm taking a big writing risk by sharing this so please be open minded when you read this story.

Thanks and have fun!

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**Circle of Normal**

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_"All of your sorrow, grief and pain_  
_Locked away in the forest of the night_  
_Your secret heart belongs to the world..."_

- Princess Mononoke theme.

o

"Her name is Hana Yakamoto. She's fifteen. Her father dropped her off last week, I heard he couldn't take care of her after her mother walked out..."

That lady doesn't think I can hear her whispering all the way across the room, but I do. I hear lots of things. The world is loud. That lady talks on about my rules and what upsets me and what doesn't—there's a fly on the wall. It's a wall with yellow wallpaper with white flowers that burns my eyes and the fly is crawling across the third flower from the bottom. The fly is shiny green with gold eyes that have a red streak in the middle and its wings are clear like glass and I watch it rub its legs together. The neon lights buzz as loudly as the cars outside and the lady talking and the fly buzzing its wings. Everything is always so bright.

I'm bored and don't have any of my comfort toys...not my rough Godzilla figure or my soft teddy bear or my nubby stress ball that feels good to rub between my hands...I look again at that lady who is talking and she is wearing an annoying lime green jacket and her matching skirt is wrinkled on the bottom. She is talking to a shorter lady with a ponytail and jeans and a white shirt that has a little blue ink stain on the left sleeve.

"...she reads animals amazingly well. It's managing her that will be the hard part." says the lady again. "Some sounds are exceedingly painful to people with autism...are you sure you want to work with her?"

"I'd love to give it a shot." the younger one answers.

"Okay then. Now here are the rules. Routine is very important..."

But I'm too bored to pay attention to them and I'm drawn to the other buzzing noise in the corner—a fishtank with little silver fish inside. I walk to it and look past my reflection to see inside, looking not just into the tank but into one of the fish as well... Fish have simple minds that forget things as fast as they learn them. The biggest one is curious and when I look out through its eyes I see a world shaped like a big dome. I look funny in my brown jeans and black T-shirt and with my black hair a big mess around my shoulders. I don't understand why people worry so much about how they look or what they say or do when sometimes all they need to do is to hold hands and understand instead of trying to fix everything. They make little circles and put what they find normal in the middle and anything else is broken. Like me, I am always outside of everybody's circles.

The fish's gaze drifts to the purple castle sitting on top of turquoise pebbles and rainbow marbles and the gurgling noises from the filter are pleasantly deafening, but the sensation of floating in the water is peaceful and I stay with it a while longer, it's nice and—

"Hana..."

Hand on my shoulder! Thoughts shattered, jarred back to myself! Not expected! Painful! Burning! SCARY! Bad! No, no, _NO_!

"AAAAH!" I scream and recoil away while my skin feels like it's burning. I hug myself and rock in place until the stinging burning goes away and I focus on the lady's white pump shoes and the younger lady's white Nike tennis shoes, which have a faded pink swoosh logo...they're bright on the dark gray carpet.

The lady speaks again and I don't know if she's mad at my outburst, "Hana! Shh, it's okay, it's okay. Look, this is Ms. Miki Saegusa. She's going to work with you."

I want my teddy bear! I curl up my arms and hold an imaginary bear while I let my eyes wander to the ink on Miki's shirt sleeve and then up to her smiling pink lips that I feel no desire to respond to even though she feels friendly. I narrow my eyes at her a bit.

"Hi, Hana." Miki says softly. She tries to bend down and look in my eyes and I quickly turn my own gaze to the right so she can't. I hate looking in people's eyes because I see their pain and they see my pain and I don't want to see souls or have mine seen unless I want it to. Looking into eyes hurts!

And I also don't want her seeing my best friend...there is somebody in the sea who shows me beautiful pictures of fish and whales and sunlight sparkling on shiny coral. He dreams of times long past where the sky is gold and the sun shines red and the trees are endless, but if I go too far he blocks me with a fog so I won't make him remember his pain. Everything looks bright to him like it does to me, like a computer monitor set with its contrast and colors too high, and he even sees colors I can't unless I let myself see through him. He cries a lot too, he's so angry and lonely because he's stuck outside everybody's circle of normal. I'm even afraid to think his name because if Miki or that lady hear it they might take me somewhere far away so I can't talk to him anymore — there's that fly again, buzzing around the aquarium. I show it the painfully bright, sunny window and make it leave and it leaves.

The lady tells Miki more about me, "Her picture board is in her room. There's also a flipbook with a picture of the activities she needs to perform on a given day. The rule is when she completes a task she turns a page and goes on to the next. Try not to divert too much from these, she'll get upset."

"All right. I'll make sure I stick to it. Hey, Hana? Come with me."

I turn away. Miki and the lady are trying to talk to me and I'm ignoring them, I'm not interested in anything they have to say. It's hard to think with them talking though...irritating even...and I cover my ears to shut them out. The older lady goes away, the door she uses squeaks and that sound cuts into my thoughts like a knife, OUCH! I hate this room!

Miki asks me again if I want to come with her and this time I follow while still wanting my teddy bear. I hate the hallways here! So ugly and bright with too much light reflecting off the shiny white tile floors and I can't look at the ceiling because of the naked neon lights overhead that shine a strange flickering purple, so I look sideways at the left wall. It's not as annoying. The hallway is filled with sounds of people talking and computer printers, papers shuffling and footsteps, muffled voices and giggling children and somebody's chair squeaking on its wheels in a distant room. We walk into a darker corridor with a rough brown carpet and wood walls that are easier on my eyes.

My room is the first door on the right and it is the same color as this hall. My father gave the lady a picture of my bedroom at home so they could set up my room exactly like it, so I don't get scared. It is small and like a clock. My bed is at twelve under the window and facing the door with its gold and red quilt and my teddy bear on top and at the foot of it is my toybox with all my self-stimulating(stim) toys, my dresser is at one o'clock with my fifteen inch tall Godzilla figure sitting on top in front of the mirror, two o'clock has my stereo and music CD's, my black picture board is mounted on the wall at three o'clock, four o'clock is the table with my flipbook, five o'clock is bare, my desk is at six next to the door with all my drawing pencils and crayons spread out on top, seven and eight o'clock is the corner where my blocks and legos are kept neatly in a box, the wall at nine, ten and eleven o'clock is covered in midnight blue wallpaper with stars stuck all over it that glow in the dark. I don't keep photographs of people anywhere in my room...they scare me...I hate how it feels like they can see me and the way they bare their teeth when they smile looks menacing and fake. The only pictures of people I have are the ones on my picture board and they are all in profile so their eyes aren't staring at me.

I go to my picture board. Everything on it is arranged in categories like foods and actions and objects and people's faces with a big yes and no on the bottom, so when I want something I just point to one of the pictures. People think I don't understand them because I don't talk and that's not true, I just don't talk because my mind goes too fast to articulate words they can understand. I hate how I feel so forced to talk to them their way when they never make efforts to talk to ME MY way...it's not fair and it's frustrating!

"So, kiddo, let's see what your book says." Miki talks softer than that other lady, which I already like a lot.

I walk to my book and turn the page and it has a picture of a person eating so that means time to eat. I don't feel hunger so I need to be told when to eat so I don't forget to and get sick or starve. Sometimes I only remember to eat if my stomach starts hurting _really_ bad...like the time I forgot to eat for six days and my father found me passed out on the floor. I have only a couple of foods that don't feel gross in my mouth and make me throw up. I look at my picture board and finally point to the picture of a ramen package and then the chocolate Pocky...I like chocolate but I can only eat it after I've eaten a hot food first.

Miki starts talking to me again and I'm already ignoring her, even as she leads me back out into the hall. Before we leave the room I grab my teddy bear and hug it close to me, rubbing my cheek on its softness. My bear is brown, old and wears blue felt overalls. My mother made the outfit for him a long time ago, when I got this bear for my birthday...I can hear Miki's voice but not her words...we are back in the white hallway...I stare at the wall again and walk through fog banks of sound. Somebody dropped a silver gum wrapper on the floor by a door, a shiny speck in a sea of light.

The cafeteria is a noisy white place with red tables and things that bang around a lot...I don't like it very much! Too many smells and noises and the big windows let the sun in, so I don't look at the tables the sun is hitting. Two people at a table under the window are talking about the mall while drinking milkshakes, one chocolate and the other strawberry. The custodian sweeps with loud scrapes of his broom and chairs are scraping everywhere and I can hear chopsticks clicking as people eat, it's a sea of noise that wants to drown me.

"Hana, over here." Miki says. I look at her arm while she leads me to a quiet corner and pulls out a chair for me to sit in. Then she smiles again, "I'll be right back with your ramen." Then she goes away to become just another moving person in the group of others in line with their trays scraping along the countertop.

The tabletop is cold and smooth on my palm. I rub it and hug my bear tightly in my other arm as I let my eyes lose focus. I think of my friend in the sea...he is awake and swimming...he lets me see with his eyes and he is swimming over a huge sunken ship that makes me immediately think of _The Little Mermaid_...he doesn't know what a mermaid is, but I show him a picture of Ariel and he answers back with a human with a fish head that makes me snicker, his way of saying mermaids look funny to him. The ocean is so blue and clear and I can tell it's warm today. I ask my friend to tell me a memory story and he does—he opens his mind to a hazy jungle where the trees are tall like buildings and block out the sun and the ground is covered in brick red mud that makes squishing noises when he walks on it. He shows me a big pretty spiral of moss growing against the trunk of a gigantic tree, making complex green patterns that weave in and out of the shadows on the brown bark. The air smells like steam and wet wood sitting in the sun and it is very hot like a bathroom after a shower, but heat doesn't bother me because I always feel cold anyway, even in the middle of summer and the only way I can tell if I'm really cold or just think I am is that I shiver when I'm really cold.

Miki returns and I am pulled out of my friend's mind to focus again on the noisy here and now. She says, "Here, careful, it's hot," and places the steaming bowl of noodles in front of me along with a bottled water. I feel her watching me when I pick up my chopsticks and start eating the salty, steaming noodles that squish around inside my mouth...it is really funny that I can do this when most people would shout in pain, but I only feel heat pain when I get touched without expecting it and then I feel like I've been branded like a horse.

_What's on your mind, kiddo?_ Miki talks to my head and I clamp down hard so she doesn't see that I'm thinking about my friend. How dare she interrupt me! I'm so...so mad...I rock back and think about fire and push her out of my head with all my might. Miki jerks back at the same time I do and I see her mouth fall open, she has sushi stuck in her back teeth. She swallows and I still feel her eyes on me and I can barely make out her voice above the other noises in the cafeteria when she says, "I'm sorry."

I just go back to eating and leave Miki to wonder about my violent reaction.

o

Finally the day is over...it's peacefully dark outside so no more painful bright sunlight...and I'm happy when I turn my flipbook to the last page that shows a person sleeping in bed. Before I can lay down I have to line up all my pencils on my desk and make sure my stim box at the foot of my bed is closed tight, I can't sleep unless I perform this ritual before touching my bed and I get mad at anybody that interrupts me because then I have to start all over again. I like that I'm alone now so I can think openly without worrying that somebody might listen in and I smile when I climb into bed with my teddy bear in one arm and my Godzilla figurine in the other. One soft and fuzzy and the other hard and rough...I like the contrasting sensations. Now that I'm alone I also feel safe to think my friend's name.

It's Godzilla.

When my mother walked away because of me, I began sensing him...maybe he was sensing me back because he too seemed so sad and understood my feeling of abandonment...I don't know how he does but I sense that he feels empty like I do. He is always sad and angry at everything...like me...even now...if his family was alive he wouldn't belong with them anymore, his face would scare them just like it scares every person who sees him. And I also scare people with the way I stare and when I scream and how my eyes are so dark brown they almost look black, soulless eyes, some say...when I was little my mother took me to priests and monks thinking I had demons inside me and they did terrible things to try and exorcise me, terrible painful things that I choose not to remember. Some say Godzilla is a demon himself. I know he isn't and I know he was born in the heart of an atomic blast many years ago—he showed me the flash once when I saw too far into his memories, and he cried and cried...he dreams of it and he cries. He _cries_ and I'm the only one that cares, and sometimes I even think his mind and heart are more pure than most of the people who see me on a daily basis.

I roll my Godzilla figurine and stand it up on my stomach and look up at it in the darkness as the moon shines through the window, lighting up the toy's face. Even as a plastic figurine he looks so sad and alone, like me. But he is luckier than me because he can cry and I don't know how. Maybe he cries for the both of us.

I twist my head to gaze upside down at the full moon and sense that Godzilla is seeing the same moon. He is far out in the ocean where there is no light but the moonlight...he shows me the stars and the milky way that cuts a glittering swath across the starry blackness. He looks at the stars a lot because he thinks his family and friends went there when the dinosaurs all died...he thinks that after he dies his soul will join those stars and live again in a place of light—clouds are covering the moon now and my room becomes dark, but there aren't clouds where Godzilla is and he lets me see the moon from his eyes. It's so silver and clear...some people say it's made of cheese and I just don't understand why they think a dusty rock is made of cheese when cheese is either yellow or orange and the moon is white and gray.

Godzilla dives again and the moon vanishes in a flurry of bubbles...I feel a tug that tells me he doesn't want me to leave yet...and he swims down really fast to show me the bioluminescent jellyfish swimming on the bottom of the sea. They look like water angels and I tell him so by showing him pictures of angels in my mind, but he doesn't quite understand the pictures. I'm falling asleep now and it is harder to stay connected to what he sees and hears and feels and finally he just nudges me back into my own mind...next thing I know I'm asleep and dreaming of jellyfish.

o

I sleep good until my alarm clock buzzes loudly at me at seven-thirty, and I slap it until it shuts off because the noise hurts my ears. The first thing I do is turn my flipbook to Tuesday and the first picture is a girl making her bed, so I do the same and put my teddy bear on top and then move my Godzilla figure to my dresser. I turn the page again to see a person getting dressed, so I do that...blue sweatshirt, blue sweatpants, blue socks and my blue tennis shoes...I feel like blue today I guess...and after I put on my shoes I check the alignment of all my other pairs to make sure they're even because I hate it when even one shoe is not even with the rest. I go back to my flipbook and see a girl brushing her hair, so I go do that even though I hate brushing my hair and only do it enough to get out the tangles—I'll leave it loose today—I go again to my flipbook to see what comes next and I have to use the toilet and brush my teeth, so I do that in the bathroom across the hall—somebody stuck a picture of a toilet on the door for me during the night and I am grateful as I go in to do what I have to do.

Right after I'm done Miki comes and asks me what I want for breakfast and I wrinkle my nose because I hate eating in the morning right after I just brushed my teeth, but I have to eat so I go to my picture board and look at the breakfast foods. Oatmeal, cereal, toast or an orange—I pick toast because it doesn't taste too bad. Miki makes me like her a little bit more when we get to the cafeteria because she asks me if I want jelly or butter and I immediately grab a butter packet. The sun isn't shining in the windows so the cafeteria is more tolerable to look at and it's still early so there aren't a lot of people. I can hear the sinks in the back and things sizzling and smell a ton of things being cooked.

Miki has an activity planned for me and when we sit down she opens up a book with pictures of animals inside. Cats, dogs, gerbils, mice, hamsters, fish, insects, lizards. I have no idea what she wants me to do with the book though and I just look at it while I eat my buttered toast.

"Which animal would you like to see today?" she asks me.

The one I want to see isn't listed there...I wonder if I could trust Miki with my secret...and my eyes look away from the book to the blue sky outside so I can watch the red sunlight turn slowly yellow on the buildings nearby. Miki calls my attention back to the book and I just as quickly look away again because it doesn't have what I want inside, but she misunderstands and calls my name again a little louder. More people are coming into the cafeteria and that means more voices talking to drown out Miki and stuff clanking and clicking and papers crinkling everywhere, it's making my ears hurt and Miki is asking me again which animal I want to look at. I finally look past the little notebook and at the shiny ocean on the magazine she has next to her elbow and I point to the ocean because that's where Godzilla likes to sleep, and I make it real clear that I want the ocean by tapping the picture of the water with my finger.

Miki doesn't get it at all. "No, Hana, that's not an animal."

I tap the picture harder and when she doesn't get it, I get **MAD**! My stomach feels suddenly crowded with a heavy rock that wants to explode unless I scream, so I scream and mess up my hair and shove Miki's notebook off the table because looking at it just makes me more mad. People are staring and I don't care because Miki doesn't understand and while I'm screaming her face turns a weird shade of red and she sinks her head into her shoulders a little bit. I yell again and pant like an animal until my rage is spent and it is then that I connect with Godzilla again...he is moving and I see the water surging and sparkling in the daylight and I feel that he is coming to find me—he stands up and I feel like I'm rising higher and higher as he stands at his full one hundred meter height...everything looks so small and bright with strange rainbow colors mixed in. The whites hurt his eyes and make him angry and he roars loudly just like I screamed a minute ago. Then he steps on land and the sirens start, the noise scares him for a second and then it hurts his ears and makes him even madder—being with Godzilla when he walks is like flying because his eyes are so high up—his snout doesn't let him see the ground at all! He sees only what's straight ahead and to his sides a little bit, he rarely looks down...I think he wants a nuclear power plant. I pull away into myself and jump up and start tapping on the window because I want out, I want to see him as much as he wants to see me!

Miki touches the side of her head at the same time the older lady from yesterday runs in...at least this time she is a gray suit that doesn't upset me...and she says, "We have to evacuate. Godzilla is making landfall!"

"Here?" Miki answered. "The reports on the news said he was heading for Yokohama! Asuka, are you sure?"

The lady who I now know is Asuka answers Miki loudly, "He obviously changed directions!"

Miki gasps and runs over to me and I get scared and try to move away, but she takes my hand, "Hana, we have to get to the basement shelter. It's not safe here."

If she's so psychic why doesn't she look in Godzilla's head herself and see why he's coming here instead of just running me away from him so fast? But I have no choice when both Miki and Asuka take hold of my arms and run with me into the hall where people are screaming and moving so much that I can not distinguish one person from another. Reality begins to shatter and I see my vision cracking like a mirror someone glued back together and finally it's all just a wash of fragmented colors and echoing sounds that send pain all down my body. Miki and Asuka's hands begin to burn my skin and I'm screaming, screaming, screaming...they drag me down a staircase as the building shakes and all I can hear is myself screaming even as the electricity all goes out and the emergency lights come on. Miki and Asuka have to hold onto me because I'm flailing and trying to run away...I HURT ALL OVER...people touch me and it burns, their voices hurt, their colored clothes hurt and breathing hurts and I just want to hide under my bed until everything stops!

My tantrum slowly ends and though my sight doesn't make sense I can hear people crying and coughing and talking amongst themselves, scared children looking around with huge eyes full of tears. I just close my eyes and prod Godzilla to see where he is and I'm again seeing the world through his eyes—he passes a mile from this Psychic Institute building, walking between two big skyscrapers with silver windows that make the sun shine in his eyes in a way that makes him more mad, but he sees his reflection in one of the buildings and gets sad for a brief second before something slams into his side. Godzilla looks left and there are military vehicles with missiles shooting at him, but these don't hurt, they just annoy him like someone constantly poking him when he's trying to think and he hates interruptions. I feel the warmth in my chest and spine that always happens right before he spits his blinding blue heat ray all over the tanks and then he turns so the sun is on his right and vaporizes a helicopter hovering around his head like an annoying fly. There is smoke and fire and noise and light everywhere and it all overwhelms him so much that he gets mad and confused and he just wants some food! I feel nothing but his rage and confusion and his aching loneliness because he feels like nobody wants to understand why he's so mad at the world. It's a rare feeling I relate to...the only feeling I can relate to.

Godzilla spins and smashes through one of the big silver skyscrapers and the whole thing tumbles down loudly, but he doesn't even look at the damage he's done when he continues ahead. He is angry now and very alert to all the sounds around him...he hears car horns and people screaming and his own footsteps echoing off the buildings around him and the sirens hurt his ears so he's trying to get away from them as fast as he can so the pain will stop.

"Hana, don't be scared." Miki says to me, not knowing that I'm upset because Godzilla is. Now Godzilla is going away again, giving up on the power plant because he can't take the pain in his ears anymore and he just wants to sleep, so he turns back to the water and the world spins in a disorienting spiral when he turns and trudges through the blinding bright white debris and colorful minerals in some of the stone from the buildings glow and he thinks it's pretty, it is his only comfort when he stomps back out to sea. The screaming sirens only stop when he goes back underwater and the water muffles everything—I am forced to draw back into myself again and something in the basement stinks...somebody had an accident...not me though, one of the little children.

"I think he's gone," says Asuka, she talks in a whisper like she doesn't want anybody to hear. She stands up and I see she has dirt on a lapel of her gray jacket that looks dark gray in the dim room. "Okay, kids, let's all line up and go back up." She nods to other teachers and teachers aids and the children begin to slowly file out of the cramped basement...I see the child that had an accident, she is crying and the back of her pink dress and the backs of her legs are all brown and smell awful...her teacher takes her a different direction from the others when they reach the top of the stairs.

Now Miki stands and helps me up as well...leading me slowly up the stairs while chattering about some subject I have no interest in so I just tune her out and don't listen. We pass a panoramic photograph of the ocean and I immediately run over and tap it because I want to go to the ocean where Godzilla is.

"Hana? What do you want? Yes, that's the ocean, it's pretty isn't it?"

Stupid!

My mind goes so fast and it's hard to think when that heavy stone comes back into my stomach and makes me want to scream again...I jump when somebody drops a book in the hall and look towards the sound for a minute...then I slap my hand into my forehead and wiggle my fingers to help myself think. I finally just risk letting the walls in my mind down and turn towards Miki, looking at her left ear where she has a sparkling stud earring...and I _flood_ her with images of Godzilla, throwing them at her so hard that she grabs her head and leans on the wall. I feel her eyes on me, staring at mine even though I don't look back at her and I don't understand the emotions she gives back.

"Godzilla...you...want to see Godzilla?"

I slap the picture on the wall again with my palm and jump up and down excitedly because she finally got my message, or so I thought.

"You can't." Miki tells me, trying to make me look at her and failing because I just look at the wall again. She says, "You might get hurt."

And I moan and grab my head because I'm getting mad again and I just want to run out of here and...just run until I can't breathe! She doesn't want to understand Godzilla any more than she wants to understand me and it's so stupid that people never just LISTEN! I keep my head down and let Miki lead me back to my room, and when I get in I go to my flipbook and turn the page so I know what to do next...and it's a picture of a girl cleaning up her room, so I pick up the clothes I threw on the floor last night and stick them in the hamper by my bed—Miki closes the door quietly, but I hear her outside talking to Asuka because they forgot again that I can hear a lot.

"Asuka!" Miki called, "Asuka, she's been in contact with Godzilla!"

"What?" Asuka's voice is loud.

"She showed me." Miki answers. "I think she wants to get close to him."

Asuka hisses, "We can't allow that!"

And Miki whispers, "I know."

I knew it! I knew they would try to keep me away...Miki is a traitor...they always betray me! I let myself groan again and go back to my flipbook to see what I should do next so my own anger doesn't drive me crazy and the laminated page has a picture of two people walking under trees...so it means go for a walk. I pull on my door to open it and Miki and Asuka jump apart and look at me—I point to my book and Miki looks.

Miki asks, "Oh, it's time to go outside for awhile? Where do you want to go?"

I immediately point to the beach on my picture board...I want to go to the ocean, I don't care what they say, I want to talk to my friend! Miki and Asuka look at each other and I just know they'll say no and I jump up and down while slapping the picture with my fist so they know exactly where I want to go.

"The beach is going to be blocked off, Hana." Miki says gently. "How about the park?"

I slap her cheek and she gasps and rocks back, and just as quickly Asuka grabs my wrist and slaps it, saying, "No! No hitting!"

I jerk my hand out of Asuka's grasp, drawing away without looking at her or Miki because I know I've lost this battle, and I finally touch a picture of the park with my finger so they know I'll go. I grab my Godzilla toy because I want it with me.

"Miki, look in her toy box, her father said she has a communication flipbook for when she goes out. I looks like a three ring binder."

Miki finds it and holds it up. It's black. "Thanks, Asuka."

Miki takes me to the bathroom first and then it's a long walk down the bright white hallway and then out into the harsh sunlight that turns the world neon colors with a lot of glare coming off white surfaces. The park is right next to the Institute and I look up at the big gray rectangle of the Institute building with trees lining the white steps and lots of grass that's well trimmed in dark and light squares all around and it makes me think of a golf course...but without holes. Miki sits me down at a sky blue picnic table under a big eucalyptus tree that smells like Vicks and opens my picture book, which has the words "yes" and "no" written on a little tab that flips out so I don't have to keep turning to a page to answer yes or no to questions. She takes hold of my Godzilla toy and turns it around so the face is towards me and I reach out to tap its nose with my fingertip.

"Hana, do you talk to Godzilla a lot?" Miki asks me.

I touch yes and look away, watching birds flutter around in the trees, even looking into the silly crows to see what they find so interesting...they aren't looking at me or Miki...they are interested in bugs crawling down in the grass. Bird vision is confusing sometimes because they don't see quite straight ahead as much as I do, so I shake my head and rub my eyes as I come back to myself. Miki is talking to me again.

"Can you tell me what he feels?" she asks again.

I thought Miki was psychic too and could find out for herself! Her questions prove irritating and I ignore her for a moment while I look down at an orange butterfly flitting around a yellow dandelion flower poking up from the grass.

"Hana, I need to know."

So I flip the page to pictures of little yellow faces and point to the sad one and then the angry one and then I turn away, rocking in place so I can think again in this bright, disruptive park with all its smells and sounds. I don't look at Miki or expect her to understand and the next time she talks I completely and utterly ignore her.

o

It took two weeks to clean up Godzilla's mess before the beach became clear for visitors, so I am happy to sit here and draw patterns in the sand with my fingers. The sand is brown and there is a lot of stinky seaweed everywhere, people all around are talking while sitting under painfully bright beach umbrellas, the ocean is roaring on the shore all sparkling blue and flat against the sky like a scene from TV, and over to the north is a tall wooden pier that reaches far over the water where people like to fish. Everybody thinks Godzilla moved away but I know he isn't as far as they think, in fact he just told me his version of a joke by showing me what I thought was a shark fin and it turned out to be a dolphin and he thought it was funny. And two weeks is a long time...time enough to settle into my daily routines and relax enough to talk to some of the animals Miki brings to me. Cats are very arrogant and proud creatures that think the entire world should give them what they want...dogs are always cheerful and bubbly and like to make people smile...rats and mice are scared all the time and mostly think about food and lizards like iguanas always make me sleepy. Asuka put funny sticky cups on my head to test me and they liked watching my brain waves match exactly with those of the animals I was reading and they even timed how fast I got in synch, it took point twenty five seconds or one fourth of a second...I'm fast!

...I find a pretty abalone shell buried in the sand where I'm drawing and I pull it out to look at it, looking at how the pretty colors shimmer and glisten like the jellyfish Godzilla showed me. Godzilla is out there right now, I feel him creeping closer in the water and I can't risk calling him to see me when Miki is sitting so close that I can smell her sunscreen...but I've got a plan and if it works I can talk to Godzilla face to face finally...I don't know why but I feel like he has something I need and I can't face life until I have that answer, but I can't get into his memories because he can push me away too easily when I'm far away, but if I'm close the link will be stronger...I even wore a bright yellow bathing suit that I hate so he will see me better because to him I'll glow.

I feel no remorse for the plan or that I'm going to deceive Miki for my own gain, she'll get in my way and if I get locked inside forever I want to see Godzilla just one time before it happens—the ice cream booth is open! It's time to put my plan into action—I grab Miki's arm and point at the ice cream vendor up by the sidewalk when he rings his bell that echoes over my brain like clamoring church bells, OUCH!

"Ice cream?" she asks me and I point to yes in my book, which has sand on it that I wipe off.

The second Miki stands up I reach out to Godzilla and call him...nobody knows he's only a mile away and within seconds the water is churning like crazy and Miki is already halfway to the ice cream guy. I flap my hands and run fast down the beach while people around me scream and panic and cause my head to hurt with all the confusing noise—Godzilla's loud roar vibrates my bones and scares me a bit...I scream back at him...then I look and Miki is running after me, I only recognize her red bikini top and sandy jean shorts with torn leg holes...and I turn away and keep running up the beach to the pier stretching out over the water where Godzilla is coming. Godzilla is a big black shape in the sparkling blue not far away, this pier is high so he will see me and I show him a picture of it so he knows where to look.

"_HANA!_" Miki screams and some people in the crowd grab her and start dragging her away towards the street and the whole time she is yelling at them, "No, wait! There's a student up there! She's autistic, she doesn't know she's in danger!"

But I keep climbing until I can run across the rough, hot wood that feels pleasant on my feet. I look with Godzilla's eyes and see the pier, see myself running up it and sense his head turning to look at me, I go back into myself and lean on the railing, gasping, waving at him and I see his gigantic clawed hands in the water, churning it, and I can hear his growly breath and smell something like ozone, seawater and dead fish, it's his pitted skin. Godzilla comes closer, closer, closer, each step rattling the beach and the people behind me are too afraid to come closer...and then I am under a massive shadow, staring straight at his wet shoulder. He snorts, I feel the air blast me like a huge fan and I know he is looking at me...so I push into his head to look for those memories he won't show me otherwise...he has to tell me what hurts him and why he understands why I hurt inside! I get to the fog he always puts up and he recoils, making it thicker and shaking his head and suddenly I see my own mother walking out of my room and never returning...I know Godzilla sees it because he roars and I cover my ears and scream back at him. He raises his hand to smash the pier and stops when I again show him my mom leaving me, the door slamming not only on her but on my mind, closing me off from everything. Her with her narrowed eyes and unsmiling face and her dyed brown hair falling in her mascara-streaked face and the smell of liquor heavy on her breath when she tells me in a whisper that my soul is black with her past sins and then the door slams again, hurting my ears. Godzilla bends his head way down to look at me—his head is bigger than a house and his fangs taller than me—and sniffs at me, grunting...I hear the air going into his nostrils, they are like black slitted tunnels that flare and wink shut again, and when I look towards him again I see his cheek...

...and then I look into his eyes...

They are eyes that are bigger than I am tall and gold edged in red...he shows me in his memories and the second I see them I feel like I've been struck by lightning in my chest—I'm seeing with his eyes, he's lying on his side in pain, bleeding red all over the green grass and gasping slowly with shattered ribs while men in military uniforms salute and then leave, they _leave_ and he is so scared and alone and he feels like he's dying, he doesn't want to die alone...and all I see are those men leaving and he is crying. I see my mother slamming the door and I see those men walking away and my throat hurts so bad, my face tingles and feels warm and it's so hard to swallow...tears are in Godzilla's eyes and I feel the wetness on my cheeks, tickling down my face and growing cold in the wind. He was _abandoned_ just like me...his mind repeats the memory of those soldiers leaving over and over and they walk through a door with my mother and the door slams shut with a loud bang. I look up at Godzilla and he is frozen above me, close enough that I am compelled to reach out and lay my hands on his rough, soaking wet snout and pet his ridged skin even though he's so big that I doubt he even feels it.

My chest hitches so strangely and I feel like I'll throw up and I just whine softly instead as the wet...the tears...pour hotly down my face like rain on a window pane—it feels so strange to cry with this creature who the world thinks can only hate when he's just mad at people like I'm mad at my mom...they LEFT him...they left him and then the big bomb fell and turned him into what he is now...and now we are crying together in our understanding of each other's own internal rage at being left behind with no explanation or reason...Godzilla presses forward against my hands and nudges me further back onto the pier and he is so big and strong that the twitch of his movement moves me back several feet. He is looking at me and studying me now that his tears have stopped, but mine haven't and I can't make them stop falling...I am looking straight into his eyes and I don't do that normally...survivors said his eyes are like fire and they don't burn at all even though they are feral like a hawk's. I feel like the world is slowing down around me, the screams of people behind me are far away and I hear just the wind whipping through my hair and whistling over the pier railings and the soft lapping of the water on the wood panels and Godzilla's body. My mind goes slower and I feel my lips twitching and moving, something in me is begging for freedom. I've never felt the compulsion to talk before because nobody could ever understand me before...maybe Godzilla will.

They are the only words I will probably ever be able to say. I sound like a small toddler when I talk, the words are slow to form and even harder to articulate—"I'm sorry."—but I say them anyway.

And Godzilla looks at me again with those big, fierce yet sad eyes and bares his teeth slightly and I don't feel any fear of him anymore. He turns almost in slow motion, yet that is enough to make water wash up onto the pier and soaks me, his tail creates a giant splash as he walks away from me and when I touch his mind again he is thinking of a song I listen to a lot on my stereo that he sometimes hears if I connect to him when I'm listening to it, it's the _Princess Mononoke_ theme...and he is peaceful for the moment. Not forever because tomorrow he will remember why he is so mad and why he has to come here to eat...but for awhile he is peaceful enough not to hurt the people on the beach, people from the same race that hurt him and abandoned him so long ago. He just put me in his circle of normal and he is in mine, we fit in each other's circles because we are both angry about the same thing and there is nothing we can do to change it.

Miki comes running up the dock and her footsteps are loud in my ears even though I'm slightly and temporarily deafened by Godzilla's loud roar...I can't barely think straight because I just realized Godzilla taught me how to cry and the tears are still falling even though I'm not gasping and feeling like throwing up anymore. I'm going to be in big trouble when I go back to the Psychic Institute because of what I did, maybe Miki will get in more trouble because she accidentally let me get away with it and there is no way to prove I tricked her, but I feel no remorse because I had a moment's peace and I can still talk to Godzilla whenever I want, they can't stop me.

"Hana! Hana! Are you okay?" Miki asks between gasps when she finally reaches me. "Come on and let's go with the EMT's to the hospital - don't touch me with your hands! They might be irradiated!"

I look first at my hands and they are red like they've been slightly sunburned but it's not bad at all, then I look sideways and see that Miki has a towel and I let her put it around my hands so I don't accidentally touch somebody, it doesn't hurt this time because I'm ready for it when she touches me and she hugs me when she sees my tears—then she wraps her hands around my arms and steers me towards the beach where there is an ambulance waiting with men in bright white uniforms that smile and talk to me like I'm a toddler to tell me it won't hurt when I know full well that it always will, and they examine my hands with a geiger counter that doesn't click a lot, but it clicks enough that they have to take me to the hospital for monitoring...Godzilla roars again from far away and I look once more at the water to see him dive under the waves and then the water is calm again; calm for now, but it will churn again when he comes back later, he always comes back and I feel like he is the only friend I have who will ever really understand me and not treat me like I'm inferior.

Why is the world so cruel?


End file.
